Latest / Crafted Connections / EP 3: SOLO - Five Defining Experiences That Shaped Me

Transcript

EP 3: SOLO - Five Defining Experiences That Shaped Me · Crafted Connections

• 0:04
  Katelyn: Hello, welcome to Crafted Connections.
• 0:07
  Katelyn: I'm Katelyn Calhoun, and this is a podcast all about storytelling and building genuine community.
• 0:12
  Katelyn: Here we'll dive into the art of storytelling, unpack strategies for making meaningful connections, and hear from incredible humans who are using their story to create impact.
• 0:22
  Katelyn: So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's craft some connections.
• 0:27
  Katelyn: Hello, hello, hello, welcome back, welcome back to Crafted Connections.
• 0:35
  Katelyn: I am Katelyn Calhoun.
• 0:36
  Katelyn: Today is a solo episode.
• 0:38
  Katelyn: I am interviewing lots of folks right now, and I am sending this questionnaire out to them.
• 0:44
  Katelyn: And I thought to myself, hmm, is it really fair that I ask people hard questions like, what's the most interesting thing about you?
• 0:51
  Katelyn: without turning the tables back on myself.
• 0:54
  Katelyn: And I thought, no, I don't think so.
• 0:56
  Katelyn: And also, if you don't even know me and you're listening to this podcast, I feel like I should give you a little bit of information about me so you can know me.
• 1:04
  Katelyn: That is what we're doing today.
• 1:05
  Katelyn: We are leaning into the question, what are interesting things that I've experienced and how has that had a significant impact on my life?
• 1:15
  Katelyn: So let's go, shall we?
• 1:16
  Katelyn: Uh, we're gonna do a little listicle action.
• 1:18
  Katelyn: Let's start with number one of the five significant moments in my life that have made me the person I am today.
• 1:25
  Katelyn: And that is when I was a young lady, I lived in Singapore for four years.
• 1:31
  Katelyn: My father got a job overseas.
• 1:34
  Katelyn: So in their early 30s, my parents packed me and my older sister up and took us to the land of Singapore.
• 1:39
  Katelyn: It was quite a wonderful experience.
• 1:42
  Katelyn: In my early years, obviously very formative, meeting people from all over the world, getting to travel all over uh Southeast Asia.
• 1:51
  Katelyn: It was quite an opportunity, and I think it absolutely defines my worldview today, which is that of there are so many perspectives, there are so many humans.
• 2:00
  Katelyn: We're all out here just being born in certain places and born into certain families, and we like expect each other to completely understand what the other person is going through.
• 2:09
  Katelyn: Yes, it was absolutely amazing, and I don't remember any of it, right?
• 2:13
  Katelyn: I was two years old to the age of six.
• 2:16
  Katelyn: We came back to Ohio when I was in first grade, and uh my greatest memory from Singapore is how much I loved the pool in our apartment complex.
• 2:26
  Katelyn: So simultaneously, it's like this subconscious part of me is very deeply influenced by like a love of the world, a love of the planet, a love of all of its people, and loving to go to the swimming pool in the apartment complex that we lived in in Singapore.
• 2:40
  Katelyn: So I always find it to be very interesting uh to have the conversation about it with people and also for it to be so innately part of me.
• 2:47
  Katelyn: So that is number one.
• 2:49
  Katelyn: I definitely think it it has an influence on who I am today and uh how I approach life and the world.
• 2:55
  Katelyn: Number two is a great example of that.
• 2:57
  Katelyn: So, number two uh experience that I had that really, you know, defines who I am today is in 2016, I was working in a newspaper and I decided to quit to go into business for myself, be a self-employed girly in the video production space.
• 3:15
  Katelyn: So I quit my full-time job with $2,000 in my bank account and a heart full of dreams.
• 3:21
  Katelyn: And I told anyone and everyone who would listen that I wanted to work in video.
• 3:26
  Katelyn: I already had a backlog of a bit of a portfolio.
• 3:30
  Katelyn: I made so many friends.
• 3:32
  Katelyn: I have such a strong network from that experience, and it gave me opportunities that I would not have had if I were to be under someone else's employment and space and freedom that you really just can't get if you're not kind of the one driving the ship, if you will.
• 3:47
  Katelyn: Taking the leap in my mid-20s to do something for myself, build something for myself.
• 3:52
  Katelyn: Yes, it has been up and down and all around over the last eight years, but I wouldn't change the taking the leap.
• 3:58
  Katelyn: I wouldn't change the chance to work for myself again.
• 4:02
  Katelyn: I am so grateful to that younger version of myself for believing in herself and and really working it, right?
• 4:10
  Katelyn: Like the coffee meetings, the networking events, the putting myself out there time and time again for so many years.
• 4:18
  Katelyn: I'm really, really proud of it.
• 4:20
  Katelyn: And obviously, it's been extremely influential on like my day-to-day life.
• 4:25
  Katelyn: You know, I'm a little bit more nomadic now, no longer in Indianapolis, and uh a little bit more online these days.
• 4:32
  Katelyn: Like I do go do jobs in person, but I couldn't have gotten here if I didn't take that huge step, and then every little sequential step after that, I wouldn't be here.
• 4:43
  Katelyn: And while here is sometimes skewed as like, oh, that's not working out, this isn't working out.
• 4:49
  Katelyn: Like I know so much more than I did eight and a half years ago.
• 4:53
  Katelyn: And I'm really proud of that.
• 4:54
  Katelyn: I'm really, really proud of that, and all the versions of myself since, and all the versions of myself to come.
• 5:00
  Katelyn: Which brings us to number three.
• 5:02
  Katelyn: Talking about opportunities that have come up since I went out on my own.
• 5:06
  Katelyn: Probably the most significant was in the last five to seven years, I have produced three short films.
• 5:13
  Katelyn: You know, I I quit and worked for myself starting 2016, and around 2018, a friend and I submitted a filmmaking grant to Indiana Humanities to produce a short film about the uh White River, which is a large body of water that goes straight through downtown Indianapolis.
• 5:30
  Katelyn: And we called this film Braided with the Current.
• 5:33
  Katelyn: And the whole concept behind this is that we live our lives and there's these rivers like just woven throughout like the places where we live.
• 5:41
  Katelyn: And the cool thing is like work begets work.
• 5:44
  Katelyn: And so, yeah, I said three films, right?
• 5:47
  Katelyn: So the first one was that grant-funded one, and then from there, somebody saw our film and was like, ooh, hey, can I commission you to produce a film about surveying bats in the Hoosier National Forest?
• 5:58
  Katelyn: And I was like, you bet your bottom dollar you can.
• 6:00
  Katelyn: And so, with that, in the summer of 2019, I got to produce a film for the Indiana Forest Alliance, and it was quite the summer of trudging through the woods in the middle of the night, setting out these like thin volleyball net traps and filming these folks track and check on the bat population.
• 6:19
  Katelyn: Such a wonderful time, obviously.
• 6:21
  Katelyn: That one ended up being titled Snag in the Plan.
• 6:23
  Katelyn: From there, the Indiana Forest Alliance introduced me to the Hellbender Salamander, which was the subject of my third and most recent film, Hellbender in the Blue.
• 6:34
  Katelyn: The Hellbender Salamander is North America's largest salamander.
• 6:37
  Katelyn: I was obsessed.
• 6:39
  Katelyn: It is an ugly creature that deserves to be loved by all.
• 6:43
  Katelyn: It is an indicator species, which means canary in the coal mine.
• 6:46
  Katelyn: If it's not doing well, then our water probably isn't doing well.
• 6:49
  Katelyn: And shocker folks, it's not doing well.
• 6:51
  Katelyn: So this one was very self-driven.
• 6:53
  Katelyn: I got another Indiana humanities grant for that, but I even fundraised further beyond that with crowdfunding campaign and lots of wonderful donors.
• 7:01
  Katelyn: Really brought my last film, home with a bang, if you will, by really just giving it my all.
• 7:06
  Katelyn: And it's really fun to see how even today we're still doing showings.
• 7:10
  Katelyn: I know that they still show it at different events in Indiana.
• 7:14
  Katelyn: It even got into the International Wildlife Film Festival out in Missoula, Montana.
• 7:18
  Katelyn: So the number two significant moment in my life of quitting a full-time job and taking life on for myself led to me being able to produce three films that I'm so proud of.
• 7:31
  Katelyn: And now for a quick interruption to tell you all about a workshop that I'm so excited to co-host with my friend and tech queen, Patti Meyer.
• 7:41
  Katelyn: Patti and I, BizMagic and Calhoun Creative Consulting, team up to host a free storytelling workshop.
• 7:49
  Katelyn: I said it, free storytelling workshop.
• 7:52
  Katelyn: You do not want to miss this.
• 7:53
  Katelyn: From clutter to clarity.
• 7:55
  Katelyn: Organize your ideas and ignite your content.
• 7:58
  Katelyn: And it's happening Thursday, April 10th from 1 to 2.15 p.m.
• 8:03
  Katelyn: EST.
• 8:04
  Katelyn: I know you've got a story worth sharing, and it is tricky keeping it all organized, knowing where to even collect it from.
• 8:09
  Katelyn: So this is for you.
• 8:11
  Katelyn: This is for you.
• 8:11
  Katelyn: If you are ready to share your story and you don't even know where to start, I'll be walking through my collect stage of my storytelling framework, how to gather things, where to gather them from, what to gather.
• 8:23
  Katelyn: And then we're gonna tee it over to Patti, and she's gonna break down how to actually streamline your content workflow, organize said materials so they're there when you need them.
• 8:32
  Katelyn: So when you are like, oh, I want to post today, you know where to go, into your systems, pick it out, post it, be loved by many.
• 8:40
  Katelyn: It's gonna be a beautiful thing.
• 8:42
  Katelyn: Plus, after that, after my section, after Patti's section, we're gonna wrap up with a live QA to get your burning questions answered.
• 8:50
  Katelyn: So if you're tired of feeling scattered and want a storytelling system that actually works for you, please, please join us.
• 8:56
  Katelyn: We're gonna have lots of fun.
• 8:57
  Katelyn: Reserve your spot now.
• 8:59
  Katelyn: The link is in the show notes.
• 9:00
  Katelyn: I cannot wait to see you there.
• 9:02
  Katelyn: In the meantime, jump back to the podcast and we'll see you in person live April 10th from 1 to 2.15 p.m.
• 9:10
  Katelyn: EST.
• 9:11
  Katelyn: Now back to the episode.
• 9:13
  Katelyn: Number four is something I'm also really proud of myself for, but I don't talk about that often because it was really hard.
• 9:23
  Katelyn: It was really, really hard.
• 9:24
  Katelyn: In 2021, I completed a 100-mile run.
• 9:29
  Katelyn: It's called the Buckeye 100.
• 9:31
  Katelyn: It went from West Virginia all the way to Lake Erie in Ohio.
• 9:36
  Katelyn: I had been working at this goal for a while.
• 9:38
  Katelyn: I've tried and attempted the Mohican 100, which is in Mohican State Park in Ohio.
• 9:43
  Katelyn: And I had attempted that one several times.
• 9:45
  Katelyn: I even got to the point where I made it to 70 miles and I dropped out because frankly I was falling asleep while running, which was a very scary experience.
• 9:54
  Katelyn: So over like four to five times attempting to do these hundred-mile runs from, you know, around the 2018 mark to the 2021 mark, eventually I kind of learned, okay, how do you mitigate this?
• 10:05
  Katelyn: How do you handle this?
• 10:06
  Katelyn: Because one thing about ultra running and one thing about hundred milers is like something's gonna go wrong with anything you do for long periods of time.
• 10:14
  Katelyn: Something is gonna go wrong.
• 10:16
  Katelyn: And so all you really can do is how do I deal with the things that go wrong?
• 10:21
  Katelyn: How do I move through hurdles?
• 10:23
  Katelyn: How do I like mitigate the risk?
• 10:24
  Katelyn: And when the risk happens, how do I handle it?
• 10:27
  Katelyn: So that is what I did, and that is how I finished, you know.
• 10:30
  Katelyn: There are so many more stories that I could go into there, and I know that whenever I talk to people about this, they have so many more questions.
• 10:37
  Katelyn: But I think the the biggest thing is I tried this thing very many times.
• 10:43
  Katelyn: I finally did it, and I'm proud of myself, and I hope to do one again soon.
• 10:48
  Katelyn: Slash, I really, really want to finish Mohican one day.
• 10:52
  Katelyn: That is a big goal of mine, and hopefully one day I'll get to talk to you all about that.
• 10:55
  Katelyn: But for now, I'm pretty dang proud of the Buckeye 100 and and that fateful day in September of 2021 when I made it to Lake Erie after basically going the height of the state on my feet.
• 11:08
  Katelyn: So that was pretty dang cool.
• 11:10
  Katelyn: And with that, let's bring it home with number five.
• 11:13
  Katelyn: If you don't know, my partner Phil and I are nomadic and we at this moment live on a boat during the summers.
• 11:22
  Katelyn: So in 2024, we decided to sell our home and everything we own and buy a boat to live on it.
• 11:30
  Katelyn: And we did just that.
• 11:31
  Katelyn: We spent the spring of 2024 looking for the boat, shopping around, finally found the boat, and then we spent the summer on Lake Erie in our boat.
• 11:39
  Katelyn: We mostly dock it.
• 11:40
  Katelyn: Uh at aka we really only dock it.
• 11:43
  Katelyn: We don't anchor and stay overnight that way in any way, shape, or form.
• 11:46
  Katelyn: So sometimes people are like, How does your dog go to the bathroom?
• 11:48
  Katelyn: And it's, you know, he we dock it at a at a marina.
• 11:52
  Katelyn: So it's not like we're out here uh right in the middle of the ocean or the middle of Lake Erie, which is also a massive, you know, body of water.
• 11:58
  Katelyn: All to say, uh currently we live on the boat in the summer and we uh rent places to stay in the winter.
• 12:06
  Katelyn: We're talking to you here uh spring 2025, so we are about a month away from getting back on the boat, and I'm really looking forward to it because it was a great summer last summer and we've had a great winter.
• 12:17
  Katelyn: We stayed near a friend in Dayton, Ohio this past winter, but it's time to get back out there.
• 12:23
  Katelyn: It's time to, you know, read my books and and do the work I love so much on the flybridge, and it's time to, you know, emerge from the galley to our back deck and and just see water when we wake up.
• 12:35
  Katelyn: Uh, I'm really, really looking forward to it.
• 12:37
  Katelyn: And it has obviously been so influential just in the year that we've had this adventure, and obviously there's more to come.
• 12:44
  Katelyn: So gosh, I'm it's fun to share these stories with you because it makes me reflect on the the good things in my life.
• 12:53
  Katelyn: We all know this, but day in, day out, you forget what you're capable of, you forget what humans are capable of.
• 13:00
  Katelyn: And it's really, really fun to speak to my brag sheet, the things that I'm proud of.
• 13:04
  Katelyn: And that's what I'm doing here with Crafted Connections.
• 13:08
  Katelyn: I'm talking to people about what they're proud of.
• 13:10
  Katelyn: I'm talking to people about what interests them.
• 13:12
  Katelyn: And and that makes me so excited.
• 13:14
  Katelyn: So thank you so much for listening and being a part of this.
• 13:18
  Katelyn: With that all being said, those are the five things that I've experienced that were just such defining moments and experiences in my life.
• 13:26
  Katelyn: Number one, living in Singapore as a kiddo.
• 13:29
  Katelyn: Number two, taking the leap into self-employment.
• 13:32
  Katelyn: Number three, producing and directing three short films.
• 13:36
  Katelyn: Number four, running that Buckeye 100, 100 miler uh back in 2021.
• 13:41
  Katelyn: And then number five, transitioning into nomadic living, particularly on a boat.
• 13:46
  Katelyn: Thank you so much for listening.
• 13:48
  Katelyn: I hope that this has inspired you to reflect on your own experiences and maybe answer the question: what is interesting about me?
• 13:56
  Katelyn: What has been so developmental?
• 13:59
  Katelyn: What have I experienced that really has just shifted the trajectory of my life?
• 14:03
  Katelyn: Hit us up on Crafted Connections Pod on Instagram.
• 14:07
  Katelyn: Please share your own stories of joy and uh things that you like to brag about or that you you'd want to brag about.
• 14:15
  Katelyn: I really appreciate your time.
• 14:16
  Katelyn: I really appreciate you listening.
• 14:18
  Katelyn: I hope that you have a great day, and I'll catch you next time.
• 14:23
  Katelyn: Crafted Connections is lovingly produced by Calhoun Creative Consulting, a strategic storytelling firm dedicated to helping people and brands tell their stories in a way that resonates.
• 14:36
  Katelyn: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and connect with us on Instagram at Crafted Connections Bot.
• 14:42
  Katelyn: Keep creating, keep connecting, until we meet again.